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Maija Tabaka and West Berlin

Compiler Ivonna Veiherte

Catalogue for the exhibition at the “Arsenāls Exhibition Hall”

“Since her residence in West Berlin in 1977-1978 and the grand solo exhibition of 1979 at the artists’ house Bethanien, German art critics still call Maija Tabaka a “Bird of Paradise”. The newly acquired friends dubbed her the “Soviet Countess”.

She made an impression on West Berlin public both by her brilliant painting style as well as her striking image. But for the artist from Soviet Latvia it was an unexpected chance to see the world and feel “the wind under her wings”.

Who gave her this chance and how did she feel under circumstances so different from the Soviet reality of those days; with whom did she make friends and what was her relationship with this “city-island”? And how do Maija Tabaka’s paintings look today in the context of the works of her West Berlin colleagues? The exhibition “Maija Tabaka and West Berlin” will endeavour to provide answers to these questions.” (Ivonna Veiherte)